Schillers Philosophical Letters | Page 2

departed spirit, in
these regions, and you accompany me to each favorite haunt and
pleasant walk. These rocks I have climbed by your side: by your side
have my eyes wandered over this immense landscape. In the dark
sanctuary of this beech-grove we first conceived the bold ideal of our
friendship. It was here that we unfolded the genealogical tree of the
soul, and that we found that Julius was so closely related to Raphael.
Not a spring, not a thicket, or a hill exists in this region where some
memory of departed happiness does not come to destroy my repose. All
things combine to prevent my recovery. Wherever I go, I repeat the
painful scene of our separation.
What have you done to me, Raphael? What am I become? Man of
dangerous power! would that I had never known or never lost you!
Hasten back; come on the wings of friendship, or the tender plant, your
nursling, shall have perished. How could you, endowed with such
tender feelings, venture to leave the work you had begun, but still so
incomplete. The foundations that your proud wisdom tried to establish
in my brain and heart are tottering; all the splendid palaces which you
erected are crumbling, and the worm crushed to earth is writhing under
the ruins.
Happy, heavenly time, when I groped through life, with bandaged eyes,
like a drunken man,--when all my knowledge and my wishes were
confined to the narrow horizon of my childhood's teachings! Blessed
time, when a cheerful sunset raised no higher aspiration in my soul than
the wish of a fine day on the morrow; when nothing reminded me of
the world save the newspaper; nothing spoke of eternity save the
passing bell; only ghost-stories brought to mind the thought of death

and judgment; when I trembled at the thought of the devil, and was
proportionately drawn to the Godhead! I felt and was happy. Raphael
has taught me to think I am on the way to regret that I was ever created.
Creation? No, that is only a sound lacking all meaning, which my
reason cannot receive. There was a time when I knew nothing, when no
one knew me: accordingly, it is usual to say, I was not. That time is
past: therefore it is usual to say that I was created. But also of the
millions who existed centuries ago nothing more is now known, and yet
men are wont to say, they are. On what do we found the right to grant
the beginning and to deny the end? It is assumed that the cessation of
thinking beings contradicts Infinite Goodness. Did, then, Infinite
Goodness cone first into being at the creation of the world? If there was
a period when there were no spirits, Infinite Goodness must have been
imperative for a whole eternity. If the fabric of the universe is a
perfection of the Creator, He, therefore, lacked a perfection before the
creation of the world. But an assumption like this contradicts the idea
of perfect goodness, therefore there is no creation. To what have I
arrived, Raphael? Terrible fallacy of my conclusions! I give up the
Creator as soon as I believe in a God. Wherefore do I require a God, if I
suffice without the Creator?
You have robbed me of the thought that gave me peace. You have
taught me to despise where I prayed before. A thousand things were
venerable in my sight till your dismal wisdom stripped off the veil from
them. I saw a crowd of people streaming to church, I heard their
enthusiastic devotion poured forth in a common act of prayer and praise;
twice did I stand beside a deathbed, and saw--wonderful power of
religion!--the hope of heaven triumphant over the terror of annihilation,
and the serene light of joy beaming from the eyes of those departing.
"Surely that doctrine must be divine," I exclaimed, "which is
acknowledged by the best among men, which triumphs and comforts so
wondrously!" Your cold-blooded wisdom extinguished my enthusiasm.
You affirmed that an equal number of devotees streamed formerly
round the Irmensaeule and to Jupiter's temple; an equal number of
votaries, with like exultation, ascended the stake kindled in honor of

Brahma. "Can the very feeling," you added, "which you found so
detestable in heathenism prove the truth of your doctrine?"
You proceeded to say: "Trust nothing but your own reason. There is
nothing holy, save truth." I have obeyed you: I have sacrificed all my
opinions, I have set fire to all my ships when I landed on this island,
and I have destroyed all my hopes of return. Never can I become
reconciled to a doctrine which I joyfully welcomed once. My reason is
now all to me--my only warrant for God, virtue, and